Chapter Twenty-Four: What's Really Going On?

Hiro felt like he couldn't breathe. His chest was tight, like someone had him in a vice. He couldn't move, his body unable to obey his thoughts. Heart pounding, he tried to open his eyes but couldn't.

He was in a dark void, except there was solid ground under his feet. And he was running, despite the lack of oxygen in his lungs. He had no idea how he was moving, especially since he could feel his body pressing against the bedding beneath him. And his muscles ached with the strain, his mind telling him he'd been going on this same line for an immeasurably long time.

What was he running from again? Oh yeah. It was a snake, lightning fast. And it was gaining on him. Except it wasn't a snake. In fact, he wasn't sure what exactly what it was, because it had a lot of heads. He couldn't see past the constant movement of them and their long sinuous necks. What the heck was that thing?!

Hiro continued to run, knowing his strength was running out. His heart felt like it wanted to force its way out of his rib cage, it was beating so hard. And no matter how fast he ran, he could never get ahead of the creature after him.

Something under his feet, a stone perhaps, caused him to stumble and he almost went down. He managed to evade that by throwing his hands out to catch himself. But that small mistake allowed the creature to catch up with him. He could feel it, hear it, breathing down his neck.

Fear froze him and he went down for real, skinning knees and hands on whatever the ground was made of. He turned to face his foe, eyes wide as the multiple heads reared back, ready to strike.

"Hiro."

Someone was shaking him by the shoulders, calling his name over and over. "Hey, wake up." The voice was soft but urgent. "Hiro!"

With a start, Hiro sat up, his chest heaving. He couldn't help but cough as saliva hit the back of his throat. Even with his eyes open, it took him a few minutes to realize he wasn't in some dark unknown. As his eyes adjusted, he could see the outline of the bed he was lying on, along with other furniture around the room. Soft light came from the hallway, the door partially open. It took him another couple of minutes to get his breathing back under control enough that he wasn't choking on his own spit.

"Baymax?" he called out, suddenly feeling far more vulnerable than usual. He couldn't immediately see the white vinyl in the dark.

The sound of the healthcare bot waddling forward reassured him. "I am here," the huggable marshmallow stated in a low tone. "You appeared to be having a bad dream. I could not wake you."

It took Hiro another minute to realize the person who'd called him from sleep wasn't his usual companion. Instead, Kally had entered the room to try and wake him. "Baymax asked me to help," she confessed at his questioning look.

Footsteps sounded in the hall. "What's going on in here?" Natasha asked as she stood in the doorway.

Hiro rubbed the cold sweat from his forehead. "N-nothing," he said with a somewhat hesitant voice. His heart still pounded from the dream. And if he closed his eyes, he could still see the nightmare creature out of the corner of his eye. "Just a bad dream." He looked over to the other bed in the room where Wasabi was still out for the count. At least he hadn't woken him with his bad dreams.

Natasha pursed her lips for a moment, one hand on her hip. "You should try to go back to sleep," she finally said before leaving the room.

The robotic nurse came into view. He'd stepped off to the far corner of the room, keeping an eye on things while Kally tried to wake his friend. "Your neurotransmitter levels are low," he stated as he looked at the teenage boy.

Hiro still felt the strain of muscles, even though logic told him he'd essentially been paralyzed during the entire dream sequence, at least in reality. Maybe he'd tightened his muscles subconsciously. Or maybe it was the strain from their car chase earlier. "Yeah," he sighed. "Definitely not one of my nicer dreams."

Kally sat on the edge of his bed, looking at him with intense eyes. She didn't look the least bit tired. And, after having spent most of the day asleep, she was a long way from dozing off. "You can talk to me about it," she offered. "My dad used to tell me my dreams were important, that they meant something."

The boy genius exhaled in one long breath. "Yeah, tell me about it. I've had so many dreams that meant something, I could probably write a book about it. Not that it would help anyone else, mind you." He groaned as he moved to swing his legs over the side of the bed. "I feel like someone beat me up," he admitted. "How you feeling?" he looked over at Kally.

"A lot better than I was," she responded, "now that the headache's gone. I almost feel normal now. Except I know I missed something during all the chaos. I didn't mention it before, but suddenly heading off to a vacation home in the middle of an expo is really kind of weird, you know. What's really going on?" She looked at him expectantly.

That was a conversation Hiro wasn't sure he was ready to have. He'd kind of figured either Tony or Natasha would get around to telling her, though he couldn't blame her for asking. He rubbed at his eyes, still feeling the pull of exhaustion behind them. Well, he could put her off, telling her he needed more sleep. It was the truth, but it was also just an excuse at the same time. She deserved to know. And now that they were more or less secure, he supposed now was as good a time as any.

"You sure you really want to know?" he asked, just to make sure. It was going to be a lot to take in and he wasn't sure how she'd take it all. Nor was he sure how the others would react when they realized he'd gone ahead and told her without them. Oh well. He'd deal with that later.

Kally nodded. "I need to know," she said. "I keep seeing images in the back of my head that seem like dreams, but more than just dreams. I can't ignore the nagging feeling they actually happened."

Hiro nodded. He knew that feeling all too well. "Okay," he said. "But if it gets too stressful, just let me know." He gave Baymax a knowing look, silently asking him to keep an eye on the both of them while he told his tale. Baymax shuffled closer as Hiro began with the events from the night before.

Thor felt somewhat uncomfortable in a pair of loose fitting jeans and a t-shirt. It was not his attire of choice, but he did want to blend in. With his hair pulled back, he didn't quite look as god-like, which was what he'd hoped for. There was no real way to disguise Mjolnir, unfortunately, short of putting it in a bag, which somehow seemed rude, so he carried the hammer on a strap hanging from his belt, having it currently situated in his lap. Either people would notice or they wouldn't. He also had a knapsack with his armor snuggly stuffed inside.

"Are you certain this road will take us to where Stark and the others are?" Thor called out as wind whipped past him through the open window. Strictly speaking, he didn't have to have the window open, but there was something about the smell of nature that was just compelling, unlike the smell of the city.

Coulson gave a sidelong glance towards the thunder god as he drove. Even though they'd started out early, there were a few difficulties getting started. He'd had to go through Miss Carmichael's things to find any clothes that weren't mutilated by the intruder to her dorm room. That and unless Thor held his hammer in hand, it seemed to make the car unable to move. "Would you please close that window?" he asked as he returned his attention to the front view, seeing it all tinted through dark sunglasses.

"I could have flown there by now," Thor retorted, "if you had only told me where to go." But he obediently closed the window. The car became so much stuffier with the only air coming from the vents.

But Coulson shook his head. "We have a leak somewhere. I couldn't risk it." He also wanted to see how everyone was holding up, and try to get down to the bottom of the matter of why someone was after these students. Maybe Tony had some ideas. The man knew them better than he did.

Phil had done a background check on all involved. Nothing major had come up. The Hamada kid was practically an orphan, like Miss Carmichael. That gave them something in common, though he doubted that was the real reason behind the attack. They both had legal guardians who came clean on their checks as well. As for the others, they were pretty run of the mill. Ethel Kim, the one they called GoGo, had a few minor indiscretions on her record. Well, technically Hiro had one on his juvie files. Bot fighting wasn't strictly legal, though he couldn't entirely blame the boy for getting involved in it with his reputed genius. In fact, if he thought about it, they were all considered genius or close in all their various areas. Innovative to say the least. Maybe someone wanted them for that.

"How much longer until we reach our destination?" Thor asked, more than ready to be done with this road trip. They'd been on the road for hours untold. The sooner they got to Kally Carmichael the better. He had to protect her, if for no other reason than he knew her mother.

Coulson frowned. Technically speaking, they could have been there already, but he'd chosen to take a more roundabout way to get there, just to be safe. One could never been too careful, especially with the potential of someone vying to find out where they were going. He'd thought he'd spotted a few tailers but wasn't sure. "We'll get there when we get there," he finally answered.

Coming from down and around, he fancied they might be following a similar route to the one Tony had taken. Romanoff had come from the north after some creative driving. And from what he understood, she'd beaten him there. Of course it didn't help that they weren't using the main roads.

Phil looked back in the rear view mirror. Yes, someone was definitely tailing them. Well, there were means and ways of getting rid of that threat. Worse to worse, he could ask Thor to use that hammer of his on the other car. He just hoped they'd be able to figure out who they were before losing another lead. The two in the hospital, despite their having access to facial recognition software and all that, remained off any radar they had available. If they were some kind of operatives, they were in deep cover. For all intents and purposes, their records were clean, which meant whoever was behind this was good.

"We're going to make another detour," Coulson announced as he turned down a dirt road. Thor held on as the tires squealed off the blacktop and onto the bumpier surface. He didn't believe this would end well.